Nascar's Hendrick Motorsports: The Technology in Its Secret Sauce
To create engines that power a winning team, Hendrick Motorsports relies on information fueled by top-notch technology.
Such information, before implementing the Siemens tools in 2003, would have lived in random PCs throughout the organization, or been written on paper and tucked into a folder somewhere. Now, all data is organized and ready for use by the engineers.
- Weather: Wind speed and direction, temperature
- Texture of track asphalt
- Air flow through engine
- Fuel distribution through the carburetor when the car moves on the track. This includes fuel use changes that occur when the car makes a turn.
- Weight distribution
- Tire air pressure
- Engine tune-up requirements, made according to track and weather conditions
- Shocks
A major use of the application is problem reporting. An engine can be configured in a myriad of ways, with parts put together with all different combinations (for example, the way the airflow is maximized to flow through an engine, the bore diameter is pushed to maximum without becoming oversized, and the cylinder head castings and the combustion chamber are varied). A part or configuration can work well in some combinations but not in others, and these findings are kept in the PLM system so that any engineer can search for a particular part and see its history, especially its problems. Wall says not getting such information to the right people has big costs—for example, an incorrect fitting being used and causing the engine to fail during the race.
What Can Go Wrong (or Why Tech Is So Important)
Countless problems can arise during a race, and keeping track of the whens, whats and whys is a tough job.
This is why Hendrick's use of technology is so important. Case in point: In 2002 (the year before implementing the Siemens PLM system) the Hendrick team experienced the worst—and most spectacular—engine failure when six engines died mid-race at the Talladega Superspeedway. Many lessons were learned, says Wall, but unfortunately they're scattered. "If we had had the Siemens PLM system in place at that time, those records and details would be available for a quick Google-type search in our database and not landlocked in individual records or lost when people move on," says Wall. "This is important technical history of our product information that needs to be preserved so that we do not repeat those mistakes."
After an incident in Michigan, Wall and the team even extended the use of the PLM applications to ensure quality of products purchased from suppliers. In June 2004, Gordon was poised to win a Michigan race—he'd been leading for 81 laps and had only seven more to go. Unfortunately, his engine suffered a catastrophic failure. After sorting through the wreckage, the issue was traced back to a piston pin round wire lock that cost 80 cents.
